Sierra Leone conducts second round polio campaign

By Kemo Cham

[First published on www.politicosl.com] The second round of the national anti-polio vaccination campaign went underway on Friday targeting 1.462,000 children.

Children between 0 and 59 months were targeted in the exercise by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) which was scheduled to last from Friday April 1 to Monday April 4.

This campaign was part of the global efforts to end Polio transmission. Africa is expected to be declared free of the viral disease that usually affects children sometime next year. Every year countries conduct three rounds of vaccination for the disease. In Sierra Leone the last campaign was held in February.

According to MoHS, they recorded 98.7% coverage in the last exercise, above the 95% target.

“We are encouraging parents to make their children available for polio vaccination when our teams visit their houses,” Dr Mariama Murray, Deputy Programme Manager at the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), said at a press conference on the eve of the exercise.

Polio or poliomyelitis is a vaccine preventable disease which causes paralysis in children.

Sierra Leone has not recorded a single case of Polio since 2010.

(C) Politico 05/04/16